All posts by msanborn

Lunchbox Drawings – October 2014 Part 2

November 7, 2014Blog, Lunchboxmsanborn

Here are some more October and Halloween related images for the lunchbox. Lots of monsters and aliens and the like here! Always fun to draw. And of course there is the bird that is getting ready to do a number on the side of my car. I struggled with the expression on that one but I had to include it. There was a cardinal that would sit on my side mirror and use my car door as a bathroom. Every time I came to the car in the morning, several times in a row, there it would be, taunting me. My daughter thought it was just hilarious that I kept coming out and having to chase it away. No respect from animals or children! Par for the course I guess. I think I like the alien here the best. Something about the features and the angle of the render, just slightly downward. That and he is a cool alien. Just can’t go wrong!

Lunchbox Drawings – October 2014 Part 1

October 31, 2014Blog, Lunchboxmsanborn

Here is the first installment of the October lunchbox drawings for Ruby. I find this an excellent exercise to keep working. Sometimes it is a little hard to keep drawing everyday unless you give yourself a task. Of course, at the same time this has supplanted my morning workout. It was either that or I’m waking up at 4:00am which is early even for me. At some point I’ll work out how to get both done. Right now it is a bit of a struggle.

So a little backstory on these… We all went to the beach for the weekend where we saw peacocks, hence those drawings. The Fib and Ruby drawing is from a book that my daughter made. Apparently Ruby has a giant pet spider with wings that sits on her head. I think I feel another book coming on! And then there is robot cat, which I got inspired from one of my daughter’s drawings of a robot cat. I’m never at a loss for ideas but it is nice to know she always has my back in that department.

Painting of Ruby June freeing Charter Jack

October 24, 2014Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

This one is going to pose a challenge when I am laying out the book, primarily what to do about the text. I’m guessing I will have to do white text on a darker background. Unfortunately I lost track of the fact that there would have to be text here and just went ahead with the painting as if it wasn’t a book. Shame on me for losing focus, though the fact that it took over 3 years to finally bring this one home, I guess it shouldn’t be that big of a shock. Ah the things I have learned…

In any case, this scene shows Ruby June freeing Charter Jack after the Deep Ones skedaddled. Lucky for us that all it takes is the curiosity of a small girl to unhinge the Deep Ones.

Mr Turtle’s Big Finish

October 21, 2014Blog, Special Projectsmsanborn

So once again here I am offering up excuses why I didn’t post last week (shame on me) but I was deep in the process of finishing up another children’s book, “Mr Turtle’s Big Finish” written by Robin Hoffman and illustrated by some bone head who can’t seem to get a post out every week. Guess that would be me. This book I’ve been working in acrylic washes so it is a little different from my charcoal and heavy gel technique. Naturally it is lighter on the texture but I like the way it came out. Here are a few of the images…

Painting of Ruby June finding Charter Jack captured by Deep Ones

October 17, 2014Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

In this panel, Ruby June has followed the Deep Ones to Charter Jack’s sea shack. Her looking through the window apparently startled them and saved the day! Charter Jack looked to be in a pretty rough spot.

This one is really starting to show the teal throughout. There are a few that I will need to push the consistency of the color a bit further but this one feels more like a piece of the whole. I’m thinking I might nee dot digitally push the brightness of the wood, particularly in the lower left corner so the text will pop better. I was trying to not digitally alter the images much but I figure as long as it is just to make the text more legible, it won’t be an issue of the painting not standing by itself.

Lunchbox Drawings – September 2014 Part 2

September 29, 2014Lunchboxmsanborn

Here are this two week’s worth of lunch box drawings. My daughter had a day off and so only required nine drawings of me. I would have to say my favorites are the ascot armadillo and nine-legs. They just look like a lot of fun. The space buddies also look like they could make an interesting story. Maybe I’ll have to do that, start making up little stories to go with them. I think I might actually do a painting of the armadillo and try to make a fun and simple alphabet book with a different character each week. Ah, just what I needed… another project to add to my stack of thirty and running…

Painting of Ruby June at the Beach with a Curious Deep One

September 19, 2014Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

Here is the second panel in the book where Ruby gets to the beach and finds herself under the scrutiny of a deep one. This is one of the two images that are not as dominantly teal as the rest of the book panels. This one feels like it works fine, though, as I did use the teal to unify the shadow colors.

Lunchbox Drawings – September 2014 Part 1

September 19, 2014Blog, Lunchboxmsanborn

Here is September’s first installment of the lunchbox drawings for Ruby. I started a running storyline of Princess Ruby that I think I’m going to try to get in Friday’s lunch and for the rest of the days of the week I’m trying to tie the images into what Ruby is learning that day. This week her class talked about community helpers and professions so I included a few of those. Looks like I’m going to post these every two weeks to keep the number of images manageable. I was going to do it monthly but 20 images per post seemed like a bit much.

Lunchbox Drawings – August 2014

September 10, 2014Lunchboxmsanborn

So I’ve decided I’m going to draw something for my daughter’s lunchbox every day as a little surprise. On top of it being fun and hopefully meaningful to Ruby, it will get me drawing something every day. With all the things that are always going on every day, sometimes drawing takes a back seat. This way I’ll make sure I and productive and do something artistic every day. It just means I have to get up 30 minutes earlier than I usually do. What is that… 4am now? No biggie. I can make that happen…

Painting of Ruby June on her way to the Beach

September 3, 2014Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

I finally finished painting Ruby June walking to the beach. This one is one of two that are slightly less teal than the rest. I tried to unify all my shadows in all the paintings and keep the color schemes fairly close but this and panel 2 show less of the dominant blue-green color present in the rest of the book. I think it should still be fine as the paintings will be on separate pages naturally so a slight variation in the first panels probably won’t be all that noticeable. And, of course, I had to telegraph the inspiration for the book with the sign. There really aren’t enough Lovecraft themed children’s books out there. Who knows… next maybe I’ll seek inspiration from “The Colour Out of Space.”

So here are are images from the whole process, starting with two thumbnails. I decided I wanted to set the stage a bit and opted for Ruby June walking through the town already over-run with Deep Ones.

Next I went on to the charcoal stage where I lay the image out on the canvas and render the whole thing in charcoal.

Once I’m done, I spray fix so the charcoal doesn’t smear, apply a heavy gel for texture, complete passes of acrylic washes and then dry brush to pick up and enhance more of the texture in places.